BlockBeats news, World3, an autonomous world based on RGB++, has reached a strategic cooperation with the Nervos CKB ecological fund. World3 will use the Bitcoin mainnet as the asset control layer for digital goods, with CKB serving as the DA layer and smart contract layer for digital goods, bridging Bitcoin and other ecological chains. In addition, World3 will provide a visualization and interaction layer for digital goods, constructing a new digital world around full-chain digital goods.
World3 will support players in customizing their personal chain instance space, allowing creators to create various digital goods (DOBs), while also supporting various 2D and 3D dApp integrations, establishing economic cycles of production, consumption, finance, and entertainment in the third continent. Furthermore, World3 will enhance the visualization and interaction of digital goods through an AI engine.
On May 11, World3 co-founder Wu Xiao and SeeDAO founder Tang Han visited the CKB Chinese Space to discuss topics related to the Bitcoin autonomous world (AW). The content was very rich, and friends who haven't had the chance to listen to the Space are welcome to read this text summary directly.
It should be noted that the text summary has been significantly condensed, and the on-site Q&A has not been included. For a more comprehensive understanding of the content of this Space, you can directly click to listen to the full audio playback: https://twitter.com/CKB_CN/status/1788566265289707870
1. Guest Self-Introductions#
Tang Han: Hello everyone, I am Tang Han, the founder of SeeDAO. Recently, I have been closely following the CKB ecosystem, especially in the DOBs line. I used to be an NFT player, tracking projects like CryptoPunk and BAYC for about three years. Now I am very happy to see the concept of DOBs emerging on CKB, and I hope that DOBs can derive a path different from the metaverse and NFTs on Ethereum, which is the path of the autonomous world.
Wu Xiao: Hello everyone, my name is Wu Xiao, but you can also call me Ling, which is my developer name on GitHub. I come from World3, and I consider myself a long-term builder. I started in the industry about seven years ago and was one of the earliest developers to create dApps on Ethereum. Later, I developed ChainIDE, a multi-chain smart contract development tool, and organized many Web3 developer events.
Matrix World was co-founded by several classmates from Canada and me about 2-3 years ago. Initially, we aimed to create a multi-chain metaverse, starting with Ethereum and Flow. We also secured angel round funding from several investment institutions, including Dapper Labs, Tess Venture, EVG, Com2uS, Y2Z Ventures, and Animoca.
After experiencing AW, I have fully witnessed the opportunities emerging in the BTC ecosystem following the Taproot upgrade, Ordinals, and inscriptions. Recently, I have deeply felt that the BTC ecosystem is bursting with more opportunities. BTC itself provides a truly permissionless foundation, and true decentralized assets should be issued based on BTC. I have been one of the early developers of blockchain games, and I strongly believe in the concept of full-chain games. However, I personally feel that the Ethereum ecosystem has vulnerabilities due to its account model and smart contract system, which I won't elaborate on here.
As long-term builders, we hope to build more within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
2. Why Did World3 Shift from the Ethereum Ecosystem to the Bitcoin Ecosystem?#
Wu Xiao: First, I want to talk about the vulnerability of Ethereum, as it is a very core issue. If this matter is not clarified, it is impossible to sort out the entire logic of our work.
Why is the vulnerability of Ethereum such a pressing issue? Let me give you an extreme example. We won't discuss Ethereum's transition from PoW to PoS for now, but take USDT as an example. USDT is deployed by an EOA address. If USDT violates some regulations of the US ZF, they can simply obtain the private key of this EOA and prevent any address from transferring funds the next day. This is something we previously found hard to realize, but when we saw that the US ZF sent a will notice to Uniswap, we realized that they indeed have the capability to upgrade or stop decentralized contracts.
In contrast, BTC, based on the UTXO model, is different. Even if you obtain the private key of a large holder's BTC, it only means that the large holder's BTC is lost, and it does not affect the BTC owned by other users. It is hard to imagine any DeFi or stablecoin project in the US where, if the US wants, they could pinpoint the person deploying the contract and obtain their private key to add some addresses to a blacklist or upgrade or even stop the contract.
So, if you think about it, it seems necessary to build an ecosystem based on BTC in such a chaotic world in the future.
The second point is influenced by the article known as the "AW Bible." This article mentions Bitcoin numerous times, including why it is a blockchain world and why it is a Bitcoin world. It describes what the underlying structure of a world like Bitcoin is, etc. The article directly refers to it as the Bitcoin World, while Ethereum is only mentioned twice. The true AW should be based on the UTXO model, grounded on a very solid foundation to avoid external threats. Bitcoin's more solid foundation is the first time I felt I could own my assets.
DOB also has similar considerations. Ethereum's NFTs have a contract that points to an external address, which stores various small images. If that server goes down, the NFT is gone. In contrast, DOB ensures that its foundation is akin to engraving text on stone, embedding information in Bitcoin's solid foundation, which is very different. For AW, assets are the cornerstone. Later, combined with RGB++, it can expand to more Turing-complete chains, allowing users to both own assets and experience multi-chain interoperability.
So, why did we choose the Bitcoin ecosystem? It is because we discovered a vulnerability in the Ethereum ecosystem, and we believe that returning to the origin, to build within the Bitcoin ecosystem, is the right choice.
3. The History of AW#
Tang Han: Wu has already talked a lot about the autonomous world, and I want to discuss its history.
If we have memories, the last bull market was actually accompanied by the explosive popularity of the concept of the "metaverse," which began to attract more builders. At that time, the pandemic swept the globe, and crypto artists could not hold galleries or exhibitions offline, so they began to engage with digital art. People could not socialize offline, so they were more inclined to socialize in virtual spaces. During that time, the term metaverse became more popular, and projects like Sandbox and Decentraland began to rise, all of which emerged on Ethereum.
After that period, the metaverse began to differentiate. Builders outside of Web3 pursued AR and XR, emphasizing sensory experiences, meaning they wanted to create a digitally immersive world that closely resembles real-world product interactions. The metaverse route in Web3 also differentiated into two paths: one leaning towards financial GameFi and the other towards the autonomous world (AW).
GameFi is well understood, involving playing various mini-games and mining, which is fundamentally financial logic; your actions yield more assets that can be monetized within the system. However, this Jan also criticized it, saying that games are not work; only work should earn money. Games should be about fun. Games should involve doing things that are meaningless, meaning they do not directly bring economic benefits, yet you still want to do them, you are willing to spend time on them, and you can find joy and things you like in them. I actually agree with his viewpoint.
Those who truly love games and also love Web3 have mostly turned to the autonomous world. I think this is the essence of the current Ethereum community, but unfortunately, although this concept has existed for two years and has a corresponding theoretical system and research, it has not yet been realized within the Ethereum framework, and there are no satisfactory products emerging. For example, products like Dark Forest have not gained popularity; they are more conceptual rather than product-based, and there are reasons for this. If we attempt to build the autonomous world on an unstable foundation, it cannot go very far.
Why do we need a more stable foundation? When we enter a free world, what do we hope to gain? If it is not GameFi, not endless mining, what should it point to? How do people find joy in this world? How does that joy differ from the games provided by Tencent or Blizzard in the real world? I think this is something we can focus on discussing in today's Space.
The concept of AW did not come suddenly; it has a developmental context. I personally believe this concept may become a core concept in this bull market, because every bull market has its development and inheritance. We should not forget what past builders built in the last bull market and why it did not succeed. We need to reflect on what needs to be improved and consider where to continue building next.
4. How Does World3's AW Differ from Traditional Virtual Worlds?#
Wu Xiao: AW has an evolutionary process, and its definition originates from "The Case for Autonomous Worlds: Blockchains as World Technology," where blockchain serves as the underlying technology. Why did such an idea emerge? It actually has a thought process behind it.
From the early Dark Forest to later Loot and Loot Survivor, developers have had a certain understanding of AW. In this cycle, especially after the Taproot upgrade, the 4MB space freed up by the Ordinals protocol can store images, code, or even games. Some inscription games have stored the entire logic of the game on-chain through encryption and recursion. People discovered that they could place seeds on the blockchain and use Web2 browsers as parsers to extract and play with the seeds stored.
This development process inspires us: The source of choice for game data is the blockchain. In other words, game data, game state, and even game logic should fundamentally be based on the blockchain. Therefore, I believe the future of AW should exist when the blockchain exists; as long as the blockchain exists, it should exist.
So, the question arises: which chain must exist for it to exist? I believe a truly forever existing game, a truly long-lasting AW, should be built on Bitcoin, because only by being deeply bound to Bitcoin can we trust that it may exist in the future for 5, 10, 20, or even 100 years, right? This is the first point I want to make: as long as the Bitcoin blockchain exists, AW exists.
The second point is, as AW develops, how should it evolve? We believe it should evolve with the generation of every block; with the creation of each block, it is an evolutionary process that can self-grow. The emergence of each block in the blockchain world represents time in that world. When you write information, the state and data of AW into the block, this process actually creates space within the blockchain world. Therefore, the time and space of AW are deeply bound to the entire blockchain.
This creates an interesting phenomenon: AW is like the museum in Ready Player One, where its time and space are generated with quantity, and it may give rise to a holographic game where you can return to any block height, revisit any time node, and repeatedly watch the evolutionary process and gameplay of that time. It is a traceable history, a space-time view that has already been created. This is very interesting and has never existed before; it is completely different from traditional NFTs and Sandbox. It is entirely based on the chain and can return to any time height, representing a fully recorded history, which is a completely different thing.
The last point is transparency in operation; it is completely open and transparent. Due to the vulnerabilities of the Ethereum ecosystem, we believe AW should be based on Bitcoin's UTXO model, which is not only completely open and transparent but also cannot be stopped by anyone. Additionally, AW should provide permissionless UGC opportunities, allowing creators to continuously create and evolve through AI.
I believe this is the direction that true AW should explore, and it is also the direction we will focus on and attempt to explore further. How to achieve this? On a technical level, we will treat the state, code, logic, etc., that you see as seeds and place them all on the blockchain. We store the seeds on the blockchain; we decode the seeds to manifest the world. This seed can even be parsed and presented to the world through existing Web2 methods and channels, showcasing that it is a truly AW world. This is what we aim to do.
5. Expectations for AW#
Tang Han: I want to talk about my expectations for the autonomous world that can be built based on RGB++.
We are already living in a digital world. Every day, we may spend about 10 hours in the digital world, facing screens, whether on our phones or computers, with various screens and smart hardware devices. Our social relationships, including the things we love and create, are mostly not in the real world but in the digital world. As we invest more time in the digital world, the screen seems to have become our earth, but the problem is that the earth we are currently connected to is very fragile.
Earlier, Wu mentioned the vulnerabilities of Ethereum, and the world controlled by Tencent and Douyin is even more fragile than Ethereum. This is why we constantly seek more solid foundations and believe that the order of Bitcoin is better than that of traditional banks. Because it is more solid.
When we invest a lot of passion, love, and trust in the digital world, we hope to believe in something real, not fake. For example, I really like a two-dimensional idol, but if a big company manipulates this idol to trick me into spending more and more money, making me continue to pay, I would feel something is wrong. When I really like a game character, but that character can be manipulated and suddenly erased or have a skill taken away, I would also feel something is off because I am not loving something solid. Then I would doubt the meaning and value of my feelings and investments. I think this can affect our mental state.
How do we live? How do we relate to the digital world? Is this relationship meaningful or meaningless? Is this relationship solid and trustworthy? What does it mean for our lives? These are very important questions, especially since our next generation will live in a place that is increasingly immersed in the virtual world.
I think Bitcoin has made a great start. Bitcoin has created a trustworthy, solid digital gold or electronic cash that is not controlled by traditional banks. The assets in your bank ledger require you to trust the bank, and when it collapses, your assets may be gone, leaving you feeling insecure. We need more security; we need to find more security in the digital world. This is my expectation for the autonomous world that grows out of Bitcoin: to create a safer, more trustworthy digital space.
How to achieve this? I believe it can be done through PoW and UTXO. I previously wrote an article titled "Bitcoin Renaissance: The Material Tendencies and Retroism of the Digital World," which discusses how this retroism is about imitating reality to build a safer world. Its on-chain space-time requires significant energy to reverse, but that energy itself cannot be forged.
I am really looking forward to creating such a digital world that is no longer endlessly financialized like the Ethereum ecosystem. If every day involves GameFi "mining," I would find it very annoying, and the mines will always collapse. I have never seen a mine that doesn't collapse, and the speed of collapse is increasing, which is very boring. What we may need is a place that can create real value, such as emotional value and the value of companionship. As people spend more and more time in the digital world, can we establish a trustworthy social relationship around something? Information is increasingly overloaded, yet people are becoming more isolated. Interactions between people are becoming more closed off, more like information cocoons, making it harder to find real friends. A lot of time is not spent interacting with real people in reality. How can we solve this atomization and loneliness? Is it possible to create such a space in the autonomous world to address it? Is it possible to give birth to new social relationships? I think this is real. We need such things, and once we have real social relationships, we will find that some digital goods have real demand and value for us because they are interconnected with our lives; they are not an endless mining process. These are some of my expectations.
6. World3's Recent Goals and Roadmap#
Wu Xiao: A few months ago, our team demonstrated at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) and even had an interview. As a browser-based AW, it is already playable, and we have included booths for Nervape and Unicorn, creating Instance Spaces. Nothing happens overnight; we have been working on the World3 project for three years, and we have reached a stage where you can click and play now. You can experience it on our official website.
Our upcoming roadmap is also available on our website. In Q2 of this year, we will release our console system, which includes tasks and scenes for interacting with DOB-based SOUL. We will also collaborate with the existing Bitcoin ecosystem and RGB++ ecosystem to build relevant Instance Spaces, providing more scenarios for people to see and play. At the same time, our 3D world will also be opened concurrently.
Most importantly, we will release our official DOB, expected to launch in the form of an airdrop. We hope this airdrop can deeply collaborate with more existing partners in the Bitcoin ecosystem, allowing everyone to create together. To put it bluntly, we want to expand outward. I firmly believe in the power of the creator economy, and we need everyone to unite to let the outside world know that 3D AW can indeed be born in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and it should be born in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
A truly good technology, a truly good framework, should provide services within a multi-chain ecosystem, but ultimately it should still be rooted in Bitcoin, existing as a seed within the Bitcoin ecological network, and then radiating to the multi-chain ecosystem for everyone to experience. This is also what RGB++ is continuously striving for and trying to achieve. We will deeply collaborate with the existing RGB++ ecosystem to provide service scenarios and work together to strive for incremental growth.
7. The Relationship Between Matrix World and World3#
Wu Xiao: We have upgraded the Matrix World brand to World3 because the name World3 may be more suitable for market interactions.
What we have accumulated over the past few years ultimately presents Autonomous World, which should be rooted in the Bitcoin ecosystem. In the future, it can link more chains to achieve multi-chain interoperability, allowing more people to experience it. But ultimately, we want everyone to know that the true AW should develop on Bitcoin. We need to build this consensus to achieve systemic incremental growth. Systemic incremental growth is not only important for us but also for the entire Bitcoin ecosystem's AW and future innovations within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
8. How Will World3 Integrate AI to Improve Game Experience?#
Wu Xiao: Previously, when we moved the University of Alberta to AW, applications like AI Chatbot were already implemented and showcased.
In our collaboration with the CKB and RGB++ ecosystems, AI can help expand the knowledge base. For example, Nervape not only has a Chatbot that can converse with you and accompany you, but it may also have its own soul, forming long-term memory during conversations. In other words, it is not only based on a large language model but is also unique to you.
This is actually one of the biggest differences between DOB and NFT. DOB truly exists on-chain; its seeds, personality, memory, etc., are all deeply bound to the chain. AI can assist in making each DOB unique, giving it its own soul, and allowing it to develop its emotions and thoughts with the creation of each block in the blockchain.
9. The Difference Between DOB and NFT#
Tang Han: Compared to NFT images, DOB is more like a digital life; it is unrelated to images. The Nervape in your hands visually has an image, but you cannot find that image on Bitcoin; it is actually rendered based on DNA and a decoder. Once Unicorn opens its images, everyone will feel this more clearly because Unicorn doesn't even have an image; what it renders is something completely like Loot.
DOB emphasizes the intrinsic essence of a digital object. A person, a plant, or an animal—their most essential aspect is actually DNA. We can restore or evolve important information about living beings through DNA, transforming them into a person, a plant, or an animal. What we visually see as a person, plant, or animal is actually a manifestation. We call the ability to parse DNA a decoder. When DNA and the decoder are placed on the chain, it becomes a DOB, and you can render a visual image through the front end and interact with it. Therefore, the connotation of DOB is much richer than that of NFT, and it has very strong composability.
Additionally, once a DOB is created, you cannot change or edit it; you cannot upgrade or modify it like an NFT because once DNA is on the chain, it is like God has created it. You cannot break its foundation; if you damage it, it may die. You can only melt it down, take out the CKB, and reforge it. Thus, DOB becomes something that truly resembles life.
We all know that life is not like a dialogue software such as Open AI; life is equal to you and does not change according to your will. It exists there, and you can interact with it. Just like with a flower or a tree, we are equal.
Based on this, we can think about the relationship between DOB and humans, and the relationships between DOBs. Currently, there is the basic Spore DOB-0 protocol. Can we improve it? Can we create a relationship between one flower's DOB and another flower's DOB, so that when one flower withers, the other also withers? Spore is an open foundational protocol, and anyone can create Spore DOB-1, Spore DOB-2, Spore DOB-3 protocols based on it. Spore DOB-0 is a "longevity" digital object protocol, and people can also create a protocol for digital objects that can die, creating protocols for digital objects that can reproduce, inherit, and mutate, evolving like life into many forms.
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